kiszk commented on a change in pull request #8374:
URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/8374#discussion_r500766332
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File path: docs/source/developers/contributing.rst
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@@ -304,3 +304,40 @@ to your branch, which they sometimes do to help move a
pull request along.
In addition, the GitHub PR "suggestion" feature can also add commits to
your branch, so it is possible that your local copy of your branch is missing
some additions.
+
+Guidance for specific features
+==============================
+
+From time to time the community has discussions on specific types of features
+and improvements that they expect to support. This section outlines decisions
+that have been made in this regard.
+
+Endianess
++++++++++
+Arrow is primarily a little endian format there has been some effort to
+support big endian platforms as well. Based on a mailing list discussion,
+The requirements for a new platform are:
+
+1. A robut (non-flaky, returns results in a reasonable time) Continuous
integration setup.
+2. Performance benchmarks in performance critical parts of the code to
demonstrate no
+ regression.
+
+Furthermore for big-endianess support there are two levels that an
implementation can support
+1. Native endianness (all arrow communication happens with processes of the
same endianness.
+2. Cross platform support (implementations will do byte reordering when
appropriate for IPC
+ and flight messages).
+
+The decision on what level to support is based on maintainers preferences for
complexity and
+technical risk. In general all implementations should be open to native
endianness support
+(provided the CI and performance requirements are met). Cross endianness
support is a question
+for individual maintainers. The current implementations aiming for cross
platform support are:
+
+1. C++
+
+Implementations that do not intend to implement cross
+
+1. Java
Review comment:
Just FYI: While there is no PR to implement cross platform support for
Java, I will submit the PR later after supporting the level 1.
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